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¬blingour English oak, in all the glories of the year, I quitted the path and ran towards it, to sit under its shade ; but my companion, in great seeming agitation, called out loudly to me, " Come back ! come back ! or you will be certainly caught ; there are t7*aps every where." " Traps /" I replied hastily. — "What! traps for men? I wonder no longer at this solitude. — Are you cannibals then, and do you snare your fellow- creatures as if they were larks ?" " No, no," he replied, laughing, " we don't eat one ano- ther, but we like to be to ourselves when we eat our mutton ; and there would be no end of wanderers if we did not catch them by the leg." It was now my turn to laugh, and I could not help telling him, " that if this were done in England, the owner perhaps would be caught himself, and by the neck too, as Jack Catch might retaliate.* ¬* Since my arrival in England, I have learned that law- yers differ upon this subject; — but humanity surely dictates the greatest caution in the use of such dangerous protec- tions. ¬e We ¬
